FORESTRY COMMISSION. 93 



farmer, the farmer of ]\Iichigan, who has known these lands in our 

 State for many years and whose judgment in this matter is certainly 

 worth all the exjiert testimony in tlu^ world has declared against the 

 lands. The fact that he preferred to wrestle with the heavy hardwood 

 forests of our and of other states and preferred to undertake the diffi- 

 cult problems of redeeming the arid regions of the west rather than 

 settle these pinery lands, should be conclusive evidence that tlicij are 

 not all fanii lands. But there is more to prove this fact. The vegeta- 

 tion of these lands is peculiar and is the vegetation characteristic of 

 pinery lands. The elm, the basswood, the maple, the hirch and ash 

 refuse to make timber on these lands. The transition from this land 

 to the hardwoods ou clay and loam is usually so sharp that it is 

 striking. Even the uninitiated, casual observer is astonished at the 

 contrast. Here on one side of the line, hardwoods SO to 120 feet tall, 

 mostly maple, elm, basswood, birch and beech, little or no oak and no 

 jack pine, the ground densely covered with young trees and brush under- 

 growth, and a luxuriant growth of grass fighting with young tree 

 growth for possession of the ground in every new opening. There on 

 the other side of the line, scrub oak, five to ten shoots from an old 

 burned stump, older trees gnarly, limby, few trees over 50 feet high, 

 few sprouts, or cripples of maple, cherry, poplar and white birch or else 

 a scattered growth of jack pine or a mixture of this with scrub oak, 

 everywhere pine stumps to indicate the former glory, but no elm, bass- 

 wood, ash or beech, nor any tall hardwoods anywhere. The ground is 

 not covered with a dense growth of shrubs and young hardwood. The 

 oak forms a thin stand and most of the ground is covered with sweet 

 fern, huckleberry, with bush honeysuckle, blackberry bramble and other 

 persistent growth, among which a sparse growth of grass and sedges 

 is vainly trying to hold its ovn. In this way nature has clearly indi- 

 cated the difference between tliese lands and fully substantiates the 

 correctness of the opinion of the farmer. Nor has there been a lack 

 of actual trial and the hundreds of abandoned homes on the plains in 

 every county containing such lands surely cannot all be accredited to 

 shiftlessness. 



There is one fact in this connection which is often overlooked. It 

 is the experience of the pinery region of the Atlantic Coast Plain. Parts 

 of New Jersey, Delaware, and from there to Texas are a pinery in which 

 settlement has continued ever since the landing and founding of James- 

 town, and yet this region is today wild woods. And in spite of a mild 

 climate which extends the possibilities and range of agriculture, these 

 lands remain unimproved and await the settler. Here is an area several 

 times the size of Michigan still open to farming on sands. It must not 

 be inferred from this, however, that none of this land is fit for agri- 

 culture. To the contrary, the lands are extremely mixed and one meets 

 with surprises at every hand. It is for this reason that the law has 

 left the power with the Commission to sell lands and there is no doubt 

 but that any real well intentioned farm settler can get lands within 

 the Forest Reserves provided the safety of the forest cover permits this 

 exchange. Generally then, while it must be considered as more than 

 doubtful that all these lands or even a large proportion are agricultural 

 lands, the present State policy, the Forest Reserve policy fully considers 



